Tag: rankings

OM in the News: Measuring the The Best and Worst Airlines

There’s been enough drama in the past year to impact U.S. airlines quality rankings. An Alaska Airlines blowout grounded dozens of planes. There was a failed JetBlue-Spirit merger and Spirit’s bankruptcy. A summer tech outage crippled Delta. Southwest Airlines faced investor pressure and said it’s switching to assigned seating. All while planes remained packed and air traffic congested.

Delta took the crown again in The Wall Street Journal’s 17th airline scorecard (Jan. 23, 2025), standing out in nearly every category. This is Delta’s 4th consecutive win and 7th in eight years. It prides itself on reliability and customer service—it displays this and other accolades on stickers near its cabin doors—and commands a premium for it. There’s a reason those Delta tickets often cost more. Southwest finished a mere point behind Delta, with Alaska in third.  In the ratings cellar? Frontier. Spirit placed 8th and American Airlines finished 7th.

The  9 major U.S. airlines are ranked on 7 equally weighted operations metrics: on-time arrivals, flight cancellations, delays of 45 minutes or more, baggage handling, tarmac delays, involuntary bumping and what the Transportation Department calls passenger submissions (which are mostly complaints).

Delta finished first in on-time arrivals and was the only airline in the ranking to exceed 80%. It canceled far fewer flights than in 2023, giving it the lowest cancellation rate besides Southwest. “It’s a testament to our people, along with the resiliency, reliability and efficiency we’ve purposely built into our operation, that we canceled fewer than 1% of our scheduled flights and improved or held steady in nearly every category,” said Southwest’s COO.

Delta’s weak spot: bag handling. The airline’s mishandled bag rate trailed those of Allegiant, JetBlue, Frontier and Southwest. Frontier, the airline that draws you in with $19 tickets and piles on fees galore, finished at or near the bottom in all but two categories, dropping a spot in on-time arrivals and extreme delays from 2023. It did best in baggage handling, where it ranked third.

The overall scores fall off fairly dramatically after Delta and Southwest. Third-place finisher Alaska finished nine points below Delta, Allegiant 11.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. In Chapter 6 of your Heizer/Render/Munson OM text, we discuss TQM. Which of the many tools are used in the quality ranking metrics?
  2. What would you do if you were Frontier’s operations manager?

OM in the News: The Role Ports Play in Global Supply Chains

I am taping a podcast in a few weeks with an executive of the Port Of Philadelphia (PA), and in preparation have been learning about how ports operate and how efficient they are.

Maritime transport, it turns out, forms the foundation of global trade and the manufacturing supply chain. The maritime industry provides the most cost-effective, energy-efficient, and dependable mode of transportation for long distances. More than 80% of global merchandise trade is transported via sea routes. A considerable and increasing proportion of this volume (35% of total volumes and 60% of commercial value) is carried in containers.

Containerization brought about significant changes in how and where goods are manufactured and processed, a trend that is likely to continue with digitalization. Major container ports, of which there are 405 in the world, are critical nodes in global supply chains and essential to the growth strategies of many emerging economies. The development of high-quality container port infrastructure operating efficiently has been a prerequisite for successful export-led growth strategies. Such ports facilitate investment in production and distribution systems, expand manufacturing and logistics, create jobs, and raise income levels.

But inefficient ports and terminals cause shipment delays, disruptions in supply chains, additional expenses, and reduced competitiveness. The negative effect of poor performance in a port can extend beyond as container shipping services follow a fixed schedule with specific berth windows at each port of call on the route. Poor performance at one port can disrupt the entire schedule. This, in turn, increases the cost of imports and exports, reduces country competitiveness, and hinders economic growth.

Comparing operational performance across ports has been a major challenge for improving global value chains. But new technologies and industry willingness to work toward systemwide improvements now provide an opportunity to measure and compare port performances (such as vessel time in port) in a reliable manner. The World Bank and S&P’s Global Market Intelligence have recently produced the 2023 Container Port Performance Index (CPPI).

The top-ranked container ports in the CPPI 2023 are Yangshan (China), followed by Salalah (Oman), Cartagena (Columbia), and Tangiers (Morocco). Where do U.S. ports fall in the rankings? None are in the top 10%: Charleston (53), Philadelphia (55), Miami (77), Boston (75), Wilmington (81), NY/NJ (92), Jacksonville (99), New Orleans (167), Mobile (173), Baltimore (189), Tampa (219), Honolulu (224), Virginia (301), Houston (312), Seattle (360), Long Beach (373), LA (375), and Savannah (395).

Why don’t our ports rank higher? Good question. Listen to our upcoming podcast and find the answer!

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why is port efficiency an important OM issue?
  2. Why do you think the U.S. ports are not the most highly ranked?

OM in the News: 2022 Was Not a Quality Year for the Airlines

Chaos. Bedlam. A nightmare. Frustrated fliers spared no superlatives when describing the mess that unfolded in 2022 as travelers returned in full force.

Delta had the lowest cancellation rate among major carriers included in WSJ’s rankings.

Delta Air Lines’ CEO described 2022 as “the most difficult operational year in our history.” This from the airline that The Wall Street Journal (Jan. 19, 2023) ranked first among nine U.S. carriers in its 15th annual airline scorecard. Alaska Airlines, featured in the Global Company Profile in Chapter 15 of your Heizer/Render/Munson text was a repeat runner-up, followed by Southwest, United, Allegiant, American, Spirit, and Frontier. JetBlue finished last for the second consecutive year.

Airlines are ranked by seven equally weighted metrics covering flight cancellations, on-time arrivals, delays, involuntary bumping, baggage handling and complaints.

The reasons for the industry’s problems are well documented, if little comfort to travelers. Fuller flight schedules to meet a surge in travel demand collided with staffing shortages and training backlogs. Air-traffic control issues multiplied. Extreme weather spread throughout the country. The year was bookended by holiday travel woes, with a messy summer-vacation season and hurricane headwinds in between.

Delta retained its crown by navigating the hurdles better than peers, but was far from perfect. The airline took the top spot in 3 of the 7 categories, down from five in 2021. Its on-time arrival rate of 82% beat all competitors, but was still down from 88% in 2021. The airline that for years has pledged to “cancel cancellations” canceled nearly 31,000 flights, more than three times the number it called off in 2021. Seattle-based Alaska would have edged Delta in this category were it not for the storms that socked the Pacific Northwest in December.

Allegiant Air, the carrier that shuttles vacationers from smaller cities to holiday spots like Las Vegas, Florida and Arizona, was ranked 5th and canceled 4% of its flights, the most of any airline. It also had the lowest on-time arrival rate, at 63%. But the airline was helped by its top showing in baggage handling and involuntary bumping.

JetBlue earned the title no airline wants—worst performing U.S. carrier—because it posted relatively poor numbers in nearly every category. It blames continuing operational issues on its heavy concentration of flights in NYC and the congested surrounding states.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. How do your students rank these carriers?
  2. What would be your strategy if you were Jet Blue’s operations manager?